1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to emergency survival shelters for domestic pets. More specifically, the present invention relates to methods and apparatus for a pet emergency disaster shelter that provides temporary emergency survival housing for domestic pets during natural disasters such as floods and other emergencies.
2. Description of the Related Art
Natural disasters such as floods, earthquakes, hurricanes, cyclones and the like have occurred frequently in the last decade. When natural disasters occur, it is often unsafe to be out-of-doors and thus humans and their domestic pets seek the safety of an indoor shelter. A conventional outdoor pet shelter, such as a dog house, does not provide adequate protection to the pet during a natural disaster. It is believed that animals can often detect the preliminary stages of a natural disaster, such as an earthquake, before the disaster is detected by their human counterparts. When this occurs, animals often become frightened and seek a hiding place.
Sometimes indoor shelters, such as a residential building, must be evacuated when a natural disasters occurs. For example, tumultuous floods, earthquakes and brush fires have recently occurred in the State of California. During these natural disasters, many residential buildings were abandoned by humans attempting to avoid injury. During the process of abandoning a building during a natural disaster, humans often must abandon their domestic pets particularly if the pets cannot be found or if the means of escape cannot conveniently accommodate the pets.
For example, during the floods that occurred in January, 1995 in Northern California, some human residents were rescued by boat, helicopter or other unconventional means. Under these conditions, many pets were not rescued and were required to survive the natural disaster without human assistance. Since conventional outdoor pet shelters positioned directly on the ground do not provide protection from flood waters, pets were often required to seek high ground, such as a roof top, to avoid drowning. Many of these pets were often exposed to the elements and were without food and water for many days until the flood waters receded. Consequently, the probability that many pets will not survive this type of natural disaster is high. Only if the pet is successful in finding shelter and food during the natural disaster does the probability of survival improve.
Thus, there is a need in the art for an improvement in conventional pet shelters which increases the probability that a pet will survive a natural disaster on a temporary basis which incorporates a water protective enclosure which is fitted with feeding, ventilating and waste storing facilities and is mounted upon a floatation member that can be tethered to a fixed object.